39th Annual World Series of Poker Main Event Day 1d | 2008 World Series of Poker

07-06-2008 12:14 UTC-7

Political Photo Op

[user75032]

How do you know when poker has hit the big time? When politicians are focusing on it as a major "issue." Representative Robert Wexler (D - Florida) is in the Amazon Room this morning, along with Poker Players Alliance representative Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, formerly a Senator from New York. After Jack Effel announced that this is (currently) the second-largest Main Event field ever with the slowest structure ever in the history of the Main Event - extra levels inserted at Level 3, Level 4 and Level 6 - and his other usual announcements, he turned the mic over to Rep. Wexler.

"We're here as friends of poker," said Wexler, as D'Amato stood beside him. "Two years ago, under a Republican-controlled Congress, the United States Congress took your right to play poker on the internet away. With your help, we're going to change that wrong-headed law."

These remarks drew scattered applause from around the room, before Wexler added, "That's what we need to do while we're fixing the economy and all the other important things." That drew laughter.

07-06-2008 12:13 UTC-7

Day 1d Begins

[user66118]

Congressman Robert Wexler spoke for a couple of minutes about the congressional efforts to revoke the ban on online poker in the United States, and then he delivered the words the whole poker world was waiting for.

"Players... shuffle up and deal!" -- and with that, Day 1d of the 2008 Main Event is underway!

Level: 1

Blinds: 50/100

Ante: 0

07-06-2008 10:00 UTC-7

Massive Day 1d Field Expected

[user33020]

With roughly two hours to go before the noon kickoff for Day 1d play, roughly 2,200 players have registered. This will make the Day 1d opening session by far the largest of the four opening sessions, easily topping yesterday's 1,928-player turnout. It'll be a star-studded field on Sunday as well, as many of poker's biggest names have chosen to wait until the last opening day to play.

The big turnout will force the use of virtually all the overflow areas at the Rio, making for wall-to-wall, high-stakes poker. We'll have the latest reports from the Main Event's final opening day, beginning at noon, right here on PokerNews.